“Oh, Father Brachet, him have church.”

“Why don’t you go?”

Nicholas was vaguely conscious of threatened disapproval.

“Me ... me must take up fish-traps.”

“Can’t you do that another day?”

It seemed not to have occurred to Nicholas before.  He sat and considered the matter.

“Isn’t Father Brachet,” began the Colonel gravely—­“he doesn’t like it, does he, when you don’t come to church?”

“He take care him church; him know me take care me fish-trap.”

But Nicholas saw plainly out of his one eye that he was not growing in popularity.  Suddenly that solitary organ gleamed with self-justification.

“Me bring fish to Father Brachet and to Mother Aloysius and the Sisters.”

Mac and the Colonel exchanged dark glances.

“Do Mother Aloysius and the Sisters live where Father Brachet does?”

“Father Brachet, and Father Wills, and Brother Paul, and Brother Etienne, all here.”  The native put two fingers on the floor.  “Big white cross in middle”—­he laid down his pipe to personate the cross—­“here”—­indicating the other side—­“here Mother Aloysius and the Sisters.”

“I thought,” says Mac, “we’d be hearing of a convent convenient.”

“Me help Father Brachet,” observed Nicholas proudly.  “Me show him boys how make traps, show him girls how make mucklucks.” “What!” gasps the horrified Mac, “Father Brachet has got a family?”

“Famly?” inquired Nicholas.  “Kaiomi”; and he shook his head uncertainly.

“You say Father Brachet has got boys, and”—­as though this were a yet deeper brand of iniquity—­“girls?”

Nicholas, though greatly mystified, nodded firmly.

“I suppose he thinks away off up here nobody will ever know.  Oh, these Jesuits!”

“How many children has this shameless priest?”

“Father Brachet, him got seventeen boys, and—­me no savvy how much girl—­twelve girl ... twenty girl ...”

The Boy, who had been splitting with inward laughter, exploded at this juncture.

“He keeps a native school, Mac.”

“Yes,” says Nicholas, “teach boy make table, chair, potatoes grow—­all kinds.  Sisters teach girl make dinner, wash—­all kinds.  Heap good people up at Holy Cross.”

“Divil a doubt of it,” says O’Flynn.

But this blind belauding of the children of Loyola only fired Mac the more to give the heathen a glimpse of the true light.  In what darkness must they grope when a sly, intriguing Jesuit (it was well known they were all like that) was for them a type of the “heap good man”—­a priest, forsooth, who winked at Sabbath-breaking because he and his neighbouring nuns shared in the spoil!

Well, they must try to have a truly impressive service.  Mac and the Colonel telegraphed agreement on this head.  Savages were said to be specially touched by music.

“I suppose when you were a kid the Jesuits taught you chants and so on,” said the Colonel, kindly.